Second Chances
by Princess Pinky
Summary: This is a missing scene from the end of "A Town Called Mercy," in which Amy uses their shared experiences as products of war to convince The Gunslinger that he is worth more to the world alive than he is dead.


**A/N:** This is a missing scene from yesterday's episode, "A Town Called Mercy." So this is your spoiler warning for 7x03!

_**Second Chances**_

"I'm a creature of war, I have no role to play during peace."

"Except, maybe, to _protect_ it."

Amy could smell the change in the air. She studied how The Gunslinger's stance. Although she stood behind him, she might as well have been staring him right in the face: she could see the cogs and data working in tandem with his organic brain, weighing the pros and the cons and the impossibilities of The Doctor's suggestion. She knew it wouldn't take much more to push him over that ledge.

"Go," she said, her Scottish accent as heavy as the midday sun. Amy motioned her arm to Rory and The Doctor. "I want to talk to him. _Alone._" She waited while their boots crunched their way across the sand, leaving plumes of marigold colored dust in their wake. Once they were safely out of earshot, she folded her arms and waited until she had the Cyborg's attention.

"You stood in protest of my vengeance," he said, his voice as gravelly as the sand they were standing on. His hulking frame rotated, limping ever so slightly to the right where much of his natural form had been replaced with cybernetic weaponry; where his literal handgun, consuming the length of his entire arm, hung at his side. "And now you stand before me, taking his side?" The Gunslinger lifted his head, motioning it vaguely in the direction in which Rory and The Doctor had retreated to. "Why?"

"Because I know a little something about vengeance. I've stood in those cold, hallow boots and I've blown away the people who wronged me too. I know how it coats your soul, thick, like hot tar. It's not something you can escape from, even if your actions are absolved."

"I have no soul," he argued. "My only purpose is to destroy."

"No. That's what they_ told_ you, but that's not what you are. You still get to have a choice and you can _choose_ to be better! You didn't destroy those townspeople."

"It was part of my programming."

The corners of her lips turned inwards and stretched up the sides of her face. "But you could have overrode your programming; in fact, you _did_. Yet you still didn't choose to kill a single innocent person." Amy stepped towards the towering Cyborg. Her neck craned back in order to stare into that pulsing blue cyber eye. A shudder ran through her as it reminded her of the glowing eyestalks protruding from the foreheads of the daleks' human puppets, but she maintained her unwavering composure. It wasn't a shudder of fear, but a shudder of painful empathy. "You chose to _save_ them."

"And are you trying to save me now as part of your own penance?"

A hallow, dusty breath escaped Amy's lips. "I'm trying to tell you that rash actions in the heat of emotion aren't always the right choice. In fact, they rarely play out the way you think they might. Tell me, honestly and properly: what does your self destruction accomplish?"

"It's a fresh start."

Ginger locks whipped around Amy's shoulders as she vehemently shook her head. "A pile of debris littering the desert is an end with a chilling reminder. It's no more a fresh start than a string of bodies that you just up and walk away from. We're both a product of war, my friend, and I can promise you: this isn't the right way."

His metal spine clicked as he angled his head to the side. "You?" he asked. "A product of war?"

Amy grit her teeth. "Yeah. I was taken and experimented on against my will, just like you." She motioned to the cylindrical gun gorging from what used to be his arm. "They changed you, inside and out. They damaged me…and took my daughter. They took her away and hurt her…turned her into a weapon, a weapon to kill The Doctor; my best friend. When I got my hands on our captors, I slaughtered them with a machine gun and then I left one to what was essentially an electric chair. And let me tell you something: there was immediate relief in that moment, but it didn't make me feel any better in the long run. In fact, it made me feel worse, just as you're feeling now I suspect."

"But you said you were absolved," he argued.

"I said it didn't make a difference. My crimes...it's complicated, but let's just say my crimes were erased in a very permanent way. The people I killed, they still live. They have no memory of what I did, but _I_ do. That's when I realized that my actions only perpetuated theirs. I had sunk to their level and gave them and others like them the excuse to continue doing what they were doing. _That's_ when I realized that vengeance and murder is _wrong!_" She realized she was shaking as the words gushed between her lips. "Gunslinger, you want a fresh start, so why not subvert the fear with security? I won't lie to you: you can never rid yourself of your own pain, but you can help to end the cycle for others. You can make sure they never have to endure what we have. I've had my second chance. Now I'm begging you: please take yours!"

At that moment The Gunslinger became aware of the faces that surrounded them, peeking out from windows, doors, and over balconies to watch the verbal showdown that Amy had engaged him in. There was one little girl who watched him from behind the spires of an old wagon wheel. They looked a bit like bars covering her face. A recorder in his cybernetics literally replayed Amy's words in his head and he considered Amy's lost daughter, he gauged her against the little girl behind the wagon wheel: a little girl who, like himself, had been turned into a weapon for someone else's war. That alone was enough to crave bloodshed, yet Amy preached peace.

"Mercy will not live in fear," he finally agreed. "I will go into the desert and I will stand guard. No one will be taken against their will as long as I am here." The young girl's face appeared in the center of his blue eye. "The next generation – and those to come – will live in peace."

Amy's lashes fluttered, holding back the tears that always came when she spoke of Melody. She smiled in spite of the amalgam of emotions and snapping gesture towards the door that she knew her The Doctor and her husband were listening from. "Doctor!" she hollered. "We're gonna need your badge!"


End file.
